Setting Up Obsidian for iOS

11 Jul 2025 in Blog / Obsidian / Writing on Obsidian, Writing

Setting up Obsidian to sync between PC and iOS devices as a GitHub repository

More details on Obsidian and why I love this coming soon. For now, just a quick post to make sure these setup steps get captured, because I spent too long using too many misleading guides before I figured this out.

How to setup Obsidian to sync as GitHub repository including iOS device sync

1. Create repository on GitHub and initialize it with a README.md
2. Clone repo on desktop device using https and ghb private access token (must be classic token), e.g.: https://ghp_<token>@github.com/<user-name>/<repo>.git
   1. suggest making a test commit & push to remote to ensure it’s working, then git fetch back to local on pc
3. Launch Obsidian app on desktop, open vault and select the git repository location
4. Enable community plugins, install Obsidian-git, enter author name name and author email (use the do-not-reply github email).
5. Do a test commit-and-sync in the Obsidian-git panel to validate
6. Install Obsidian on iOS, create a new local vault. Vault name is unimportant, the purpose is to initialize the On My iPhone/Obsidian/ directory in iOS Files.
7. Copy the repository folder from desktop to iOS device to On My iPhone/Obsidian/<repo> (I created the initializing Obsidian vault with the same name, “notes”, and used replace when copying there)
8. Launch iOS Obsidian app
9. Go to Setting > Community Plugins. Enable Community Plugins. Install Obsidian Git.
10. Enter GitHub username & Personal Access Token (use the same one from step 2)
11. You should see status messages that your repo is synced
12. Navigate to your README.me, make a test edit and use the git panel (swipe left from right side of screen), make a test commit-and-push.

and, VOILÀ, finally notes markdown notes with gruvbox theme synced across iPhone and my computers 🥹